The founder of an organisation set up to help victims of sexual abuse, Mr Colm O'Gorman, has settled his High Court case for damages arising from being sexually abused by the late Father Seán Fortune in Co Wexford in the early 1980s.
Mr O'Gorman received an unreserved apology on behalf of Dr Eamonn Walsh, now Bishop of Ferns, for the failure of the then bishop of the diocese to act on the threat posed by Father Fortune.
He is also to be paid agreed compensation, disclosed later yesterday as €300,000.
Mr O'Gorman, who has been nationally prominent in campaigning for victims of clerical sex abuse, was not in court yesterday. The settlement was announced by Mr Jack Fitzgerald SC, who was with Ms Oonah McCrann SC, instructed by Mr Pearse Mehigan, solicitor, for Mr O'Gorman.
A statement read in court by Mr Fitzgerald said that the case had been settled on terms that Bishop Eamonn Walsh, as Apostolic Administrator of the Diocese of Ferns, admitted negligence and agreed to pay Mr O'Gorman compensation and costs.
Originally, the late Papal Nuncio, Dr Luciano Storero, had also been a defendant in the action. Settlement negotiations had been going on for some weeks prior to yesterday's settlement.
Yesterday's was the second high-profile High Court settlement in recent months of an action arising from clerical sexual abuse.
On January 28th last, the Archbishop of Dublin, Cardinal Desmond Connell, apologised in the High Court to a man who was sexually abused by a priest when he was an altar boy in the mid-1980s.
Mr Mervyn Rundle, now aged 28, of Holly Road, Donnycarney, Dublin, sued the Archbishop and others, but the court was told in January that the case had been settled.
No figure was given in court, but the amount was understood to be between €300,000 and €400,000, which would be the highest settlement for an individual resulting from a sex abuse claim.
The apology from the Archbishop was read out in court by counsel.
Bishop's apology
"The above matter has been settled on terms that Bishop Eamonn Walsh, as Apostolic Administrator of the Diocese of Ferns, admits negligence and agrees to pay Colm O'Gorman compensation and costs. He acknowledges and sincerely regrets the distress, trauma and hurt caused to Colm O'Gorman by virtue of the acts of sexual abuse perpetrated on him between 1981 and 1983 by the late Fr Sean Fortune. He further acknowledges the failure of the Bishop at that time to recognise and act on the threat posed by the late Fr Fortune to Colm O'Gorman.
"Bishop Walsh wishes to apologise unreservedly to Colm O'Gorman for these failures and for the harm which he suffered in consequence."